Will Saletan: Only One God-King at a Time

Happy Monday, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. That is the day before the midterm elections. It is November seventh. Everybody is confidently making predictions, although I think it’s safe to say, Will, by the way, a good morning, Will. Sell with him.

You’re welcome, Matt. Hey, thanks, Charlie. I think it’s also safe to say that that there seems to be a certain amount of anxiety among the pollsters and the pundits and the predictors out there that they they may not actually know what’s going on. Yeah.

Well, there’s uncertainty about the absolute level of where things stand race to race, but there’s I think a lot of certainty about the trend and about the wave.

I think so, although, you know, we we can get into that. I mean, I I look, I I’m not gonna argue against the conventional wisdom here that this is going to be a Republican win. It was your point about the counter waves, right, that there’s possibly, you know, other things, waves within waves that that may surprise us. You don’t tomorrow night, I mean, there’s a couple of cautionary notes. Number one, I mean, we will get a pretty good idea, I think, early on.

How things are going when you get some of those bellwether congressional districts out of Virginia that everybody’s focused on. Luria Abigail Spanberger, But also, I think it’s worth reminding people that this might not be over for quite a few days. I mean, we’re all focused on, you know, what a shambolic mess twenty twenty four might be, but there could be a lot of challenges, a lot of delayed counts. We may not know for some time, for example, who won in Pennsylvania because of the way they count the ballots. There’s that whole red mirage thing where you have a certain number of votes that that come in early, that tend in one direction, and then the big cities report, same thing is gonna happen in Wisconsin.

And and I think we’ve learned exactly how the bad faith actors can react to a completely predictable cycle of counting. Yeah. So let’s let’s separate what we don’t know from from what

we know. We we don’t know exactly who’s gonna win and lose in the toss-up races. Right? Right. But we do know that there’s been a trend toward the Republicans.

And we do know that there as you just said, that the Republican votes by and large will be counted first. That is to say that there will be mail ballots heavily used by Democrats that will come in later, that will be counted later. Some of that because Republicans themselves, for example, in Pennsylvania, prevent the state from counting those ballots earlier. So basically, there will be a red mirage And as you point out, bad actors on the Republican or the right wing side will use that gap to claim that, you know, as Trump said, stop the count. Claim, you know, count only the vote the election day votes that we’ve already got and not the mail in ballots that came in legally that are democratic leaning and that might push some of those elections to the Democratic side.

Well,

I also think that it’s it’s likely to become a new normal that there are going to be refusal to concede and endless challenges of of mail in ballots. The lead story in the Washington Post this morning is about all of the Republican challenges around the country to mail in votes trying to disqualify them. Here in my home state of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Assembly’s elections committee, is actually trying to have all military ballots thrown out. Like, hey, thank you thank you for your service. Now, fuck off.

I get item what? So it you you know that in any kind of a close race, there are going to be people running to court challenging the ballots that will be various conspiracy theories. Anyone who thinks that this is gonna go off easily, I think is somewhat naive. Now, of course, it’s it’s a big Republican blowout amazingly. Republicans will decide that they believe the the outcome and the validity of the election, but we can’t be sure.

So let let let’s let’s come back to some of this, the the closing arguments over the weekend. And whether they’re working, I wanna get your take on all of that. You you picked up on a couple of very, very interesting talking points. But we have to we have to spend a couple of moments talking about this interesting red on red fire from the former president who, during one of his rallies, sort of gratuitously dropped in a new nickname for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, by the way, is on the ballot for the election. In one of the most important states in the country tomorrow.

So this is what Donald Trump said when he was calling Ron DeSantis Ron sancted ammonia. So I said, I don’t know who’s teaching him his words because I’m telling you he didn’t come up with that word himself, but here’s the sound bite. We’re winning big, big, big in the Republican Party for the nomination like nobody’s ever seen before. Let’s say, there it is Trump at seventy one. Ron DeSank ammonia said ten percent Mike Pence said, oh, Mike’s doing better than I thought.

Okay. So Will, what is this? I mean, let’s let’s waddle into this. Shot’s fired a couple of days before the midterm elections. There’s obviously been all these reports of tension between the candidates.

Trump goes to Florida as a rally without the sitting Republican governor and then calls him without any context whatsoever Ron de sanctedimonious. There’s so much going on in his Charlie. Okay. Okay. So first of all, we have this alpha dog

standoff between these two guys. Right? Trump is saying that he he hasn’t endorsed Rhonda Santos because DeSantis hasn’t asked him to. DeSantis didn’t come to Trump’s rally because Trump didn’t personally invite him. There’s this Mafioso thing going on between these two guys, you have to come to me as what each of these guys is saying to the other.

So they’re doing that. Meanwhile, there’s this jostling for position. And it’s not DeSantis who is in particular doing this. It’s Trump. Trump he he he delivers that ridiculous nickname for DeSantis.

I mean, I guess it’s one of Trump’s better nicknames. I think Trump is generally bad at nicknames. This one’s marginally funny. But what’s interesting to me about that quote is he’s doing it. He’s insulting to Santa’s in the context of reading off Republican poll standings, not Trump versus Biden, not against the Democrat, but among Republicans.

So Trump is entirely focused on as you point out, Charlie, DeSantis is on the ballot right now running against a Democrat. And instead of thinking I am with the republican team, Trump is out there trying to position himself against DeSantis, against Pence, against anyone else who might run for a president on the Republican side in twenty twenty four. It’s all about Trump. So

what’s interesting is watching the reaction of many of the anti anti Trump conservatives who are just go shocked and outraged in the poll that Donald Trump would exercise, so little discipline that he would actually do something like this. And course, it reminds us of the leopards eating people’s faces party and how they are always shocked to find out that the leopards are going to eat their face. But the question is, okay. So what what’s going to happen? You know, our colleague, Sarah Longwell, is our you know, look, Rhonda Sanchez is eventually going to do you know, suck it up and realize I’m not gonna put up with this.

This is a taste of what’s coming. If if I’m quoting her correctly. Based on on Twitter, but she doesn’t think he’s gonna run. I mean, he can keep his powder dry. He can raise lots of money and then run-in a few years where he’s still a very young man.

So what do you think? I mean, right now, there’s all of this angry. I can’t believe this sort of thing going on, but I kind of remember that vibe from twenty fifteen. Well, people aren’t gonna stand for this, but he’s insulting our own people. I mean, my goodness.

This isn’t going to work and well, actually, we know exactly how it played out. Why would we think it doesn’t play out exactly the same way this time. So I

basically agree with that. If you look at the behavior of the Republican Party for the last six years, seven years since Trump ran for president, the driving factor, the dominant factor has been cowardice. If you wanna understand how Republicans behave, that is elected Republicans, they are cowards. So they didn’t stand up Trump when he was president, and there’s very little reason to think that they will stand up to Trump when he is an ex president running to be president again. I think they will knuckle under.

DeSantis is probably another of those people and to echoes a point that Sarah has made. You know, Rhonda Santos is a shrewd politician, but is he charismatic I mean, I don’t think DeSantis has charisma the way that Trump does. You know, he does not. There are a lot of people who listen to us, Charlie, who hate Donald Trump. And you can hate Donald Trump all you want, but he is a charismatic politician.

And I just don’t think Ron DeSantis has ever shown any evidence that he is.

Well, also, I I think that the Sandoz will have to, you know, come to grips with the fact that if he runs against Donald Trump, that the Mago world will feel the the need to destroy him utterly. To ridicule him, to attack him, to throw everything. This was like a little bit of a like a throwaway line saying, you know, if you come from me, it’s going to be like this. Remember what I did to Ted Cruz? Remember what I did to Marco Rubio?

Remember what I did to Jeb Bush, all of these folks. Do you want do you want some of this? Another new story that kind of relates that I I don’t well, I actually don’t know whether it relates. I wanna get your cake on all of this. So Bibi Netanyahu is going to be back as Prime Minister of Israel despite being indicted on corruption charges.

And our colleague Monochiren who’s been arguing that perhaps it’s too risky to criminally charge Trump with tweeting out, hey, just just noting here that maybe indicting a politician doesn’t actually prevent them from

being reelected in the future just saying. So what do you think? Yeah, no, I think she’s right. I think that we, you know, we Charlie, you and I have and others have expected for quite some time. I can’t speak for you.

I have made a terrible mistake in all of my punditry, and that is that I have assumed that rationality and decency will affect history. And I have been proven wrong and go to

our club. So

So, yeah, the guy gets indicted. You would think in a moral universe that would matter, but it seems not to. And there seemed to be a hell of a lot of people and not just in the United States who just don’t care. They don’t care about, particularly about violations of the law. They don’t care about violations of ethics.

And, you know, I think that I I’ll speak for I I’m Jewish. I kinda thought, you know, my fellow Jews, you know, in Israel would would be more early offended even if some right wing Americans aren’t, and it turns out I am just as wrong about Israelis as I was about Americans. So what

was Trump getting at with the Ron DeSink demonious thing? Do you know? Well, he’s just looking for an edge. I don’t think he can. But what what was that a reference to?

Is it a reference to his position on COVID? Was it a reference to that bizarre ad that DeSantis had over the weekend, which we would be talking about if other bizarre things weren’t happening, the one where sort of implied that God made him. Do we have some of the audio of that one? Because that one has to be listened to to actually believe.

And I

and I, by the way, don’t know whether Trump is talking about this, but this was certainly it was kind of eyebrow raising. So can we we play this, you know, and and on the eighth day God made Ron De St. Timonious.

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned Paradise and said, I need to protect her. So God made a fighter.

God

said I need somebody willing to get up before God kiss his family goodbye, travel thousands of miles for no other reason than to serve the people to save their jobs their livelihoods, their liberty, their happiness. So God made a fighter.

God. That is so bad. And yet the funny thing about it is I’m listening to it thinking that’s the kind of ad that Donald Trump wants about him. Right? He was the chosen one.

So did does Santa step into the, I am the one ring there. It is he is he encroaching on a god king, you know, precinct. This is

Well, yeah. Okay. First of all, he certainly is. It’s a little bit ludicrous. I mean, I remember Ron DeSantis as, like, just another back bench Republican who was just this mousy comments at hearings.

So the idea of him being a god king is kind of ludicrous. But then Donald Trump stepping into that role is was already ludicrous. Charlie, here’s what I think about this. If you, like me, were one of the people who were horrified by the rise of Donald Trump in twenty fifteen and twenty six teen. And you thought that the worst thing in the world was this guy Donald Trump becoming president of the United States and all the damage he could do.

You were an optimist. That is to say, the problem in the Republican Party is much bigger than Donald Trump. Trump stepped into that role. But what we have in the Republican Party is a base that is looking for a god king. Right?

And the fact the fact that they would take this scoundrel, this reality TV show host, and make and put him in that role was a sign of how low their standards word. This is a party that is willing to bow down to Hershel Walker and now sort of bow down to Rhonda Sanders. I think this ad says, we we, the Republican consultants, working for Rodisantis, know what the Republican base is and what the Republican base is is a massive people who are looking for a god king and have extremely low standards for filling that role. And yet, there’s only room for one God King at a time.

And so this is the message. I am the chosen one, but if you think that you can be the next God King, you are sanct pneumonious or something like that.

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Alright. So we’re rolling into this the the midterm election, and I have a feeling of of of significant dread. Not not so much yes about the outcome, but but also because I as I mentioned earlier, I think it could be a mess or an indication of how messy these things can be. But over the weekend, everybody was trying out there. They’re closing.

They’re closing arguments and statements. And will you pick up an interesting trend? The fact that some Republicans have decided that they’re gonna take the election denier thing and turn it into different kinds of deniers. Who should we start with we start with Kelly Ann Conway here? And it’s pretty good indication of kind of the message discipline how many people were on the Sunday shows using the exact same kind of thing.

Well, no, you’re an inflation denier. You’re a crime denier. You’re a border denier. So here’s Kellyanne Conway. You

know, they’re all after saying election deniers and Americans are looking at them and saying, you’re inflation deniers. You’ll be should deniers, your rise in crime deniers, your education loss learning and reduce test core deniers. That’s why a lot of those women that you talked about are willing to talk to pollsters, are willing to come to the polls and say, look, I’m swinging over, and the issue said is uncomplicating this straightforward. It’s inflation in the economy, it’s crime, it’s immigration, but it’s also education, parents, a year aftergoing young can one that Virginia Racing Jack Sheerily came close in New Jersey. Shannon and Mark, parents are still parents.

They’re still upset about what they see as a hangover from all the loss learning and test course. And they don’t understand why even though kids are back on campus and in the classrooms, that the left seems to be attacking the curriculum instead of attacking the lost learning issues. Oh, just the whole thing. And

of course, the fact that, like, a million people die during that pandemic seems to be completely invisible. Can we come back to that in a moment? Sure. Because I I do think it’s interesting how that whole thing has now been turned completely around. So Kelly Ann Conway trying out the, well, you are the real deniers.

Don’t call us deniers. So former Democratic pollster Mark Penn use the same

kind of line. Here’s Penn. They did not confront these issues directly in any meaningful way. They became inflation deniers. And and that really I think is a stupid strategy.

We’re gonna see whether or not I’m right, and that was probably one of the worst strategies I’ve ever seen in the midterm. Or they were right, they had some tough issues, and they decided to completely avoid them. Mhmm.

Okay. Well, so the the email went out, and then here’s rana not Romney McDaniel, the Chair of the RNC, also trying out the same new talking point. This

is not what the American people are caring about right now. And let me tell you what they are right. Well, our commander in

chief,

Joe Biden, going in front of the American people and talking about this and saying, oh, look at these issues with election deniers, here’s what the democrats are. They are inflation deniers. They are crime deniers. They are education deniers. This is literally Okay.

But this is this is not what the American people are talking about. They’re not I don’t wanna

Okay. Will, you’re not just another pretty face because you’ve picked up the fact that you the the email went out this weekend, didn’t it? We’ve seen this before again and again how how what they do is they take a line and they they sort of project it back I mean, do you remember we’re both old enough to remember when fake news described disinformation coming from the Russians in the right wing? And then, of course, what they do is they simply just adopted fake news. So they’re throwing out that you people are the real deniers.

We’re not the deniers. What do you think? Okay. First of all, Charlie, I I think it’s kind of a good

line. I mean, just like objectively speaking, It’s and and I will let me let me start by conceding. I think that Kellyanne and Ronald McDaniel and these other people using this line have a point. It is true that Democrats decided pretty early in this election cycle that these were bad issues for them. Talking about crime, talking about the border, talking about inflation, frankly, was just a loser for them.

And so they would try to change the subject away from that, and we’re not gonna call this a recession. Technically, it’s not a recession. Democrats were looking for ways to shut up about these issues and to hush them up. I think Republicans have a point there. The problem is that election denial is not the same thing as denying inflation or denying crime.

But, you know, that’s standard political stuff, trying to trying to make inflation go away, trying to make border problems go away. When you are denying election results, That is not one issue. That is an attack on the entire system. People who deny election results threaten the foundations of democracy and when democracy itself is threatened. What happens is government is no longer accountable to you.

It no longer has to actually win the election. You just lie about who won the election. When that happens, government becomes completely unresponsive and all the issue other issues go away. So it is objectively true that election denial is a more important thing, a bigger problem, a bigger threat to our country than any other kind of denial. And I regret Charlie I’ll speak for myself that I have not been able to make that sale, to to make to sell that message, that fact, that truth to a broader public.

No.

I think you’re exactly right. It is objectively, qualitatively different and much more dangerous. On the other hand, this is an effective way of of throwing up smoke and dust, which of course is what people like Kellyanne Conway get paid the big bucks to do. Now having said that though, that that they have you know, unfortunately, one of the reasons why I think this is going to be effective is because I think it does touch on on a on a reality here. And Axios is reporting about this new letter from third way, the center left thing tank that’s backed by some of the biggest names in Democratic politics.

Sounding the alarm about some pretty deep seated flaws based on their own pulling from some of these battleground senate races, and they they write If Democrats managed to hold onto the house and senate, it will be in spite of the party brand, not because of it. Despite a roster of GOP candidates who are extreme by any standard voter c democrats as just as extreme, as well as far less concerned about the issues that worry them most. So then they sort of, you know, break down as the kind of thing that, you know, Ruvi Deshara and James Carville have been saying for a long time. So third way, and again, these are kind of like your tribe. Right?

Kind of a little bit. Yeah.

They they come up

with this brutal bill of particulars. It and it’s called out of touch on priorities, out of touch ideologically and out of touch on values. And I’d just read a little bit of this. Democrats are underwater on issues voters name as their highest priorities, including the economy, immigration, and crime. While Democrats maintain a lead on certain issues like abortion and climate change, voters rank those issues as lower priorities, all how bad?

Vodor’s question whether the party shares essential values like Patriot as many importance of hard work? Only forty three percent of voters say Democrats value hard work compared to fifty eight percent for Democrats. Even in the areas where Democrats are trusted more, including education, it is not clear that voters are sold on Democrats’ ability to get things done. Democrats are benefiting from perception among voters that Republicans are extreme, but they cannot fully reap the gains of this view as voters think Democrats are stream as well. So first question

would be, do you agree with that? Yeah. I do agree with it. I agree. And you and I were talking about this last week.

Democrats have lost their knack for talking about values. And for framing, economic issues among others in value terms. Right? So What we have in today’s Democratic Party is a lot of talk about equality, but it’s too much about equality of outcome. And not about equality of merit.

So for example, if you were talking about the working class of America, you don’t just talk about people being in need and you don’t just talk about sending money and redistributing money. You talk about work. You talk about people who are working hard for a living and what they are owed. You talk about social security or Medicare. These are earned benefits.

You stress. Work hard and play by the rules. Exactly. Bill Clinton’s formulation. And, Charlie, I think you’re right.

It’s not it’s rules when we get to crime, when we get to immigration, legal versus illegal immigration, what a lot of people wanna hear is an affirmation that there are rules that you don’t just have people flowing over the border without regard to whether they have meritorious asylum claims, without regard to whether they are working or not. And whether they’re criminals or not, and democrats just need to emphasize the moral aspect of all of these issues. You can be for equality, but it has to be

equality with respect to rules and merit. So let’s play a little sound bite from senator Corey Booker who was also, you know, making this last minute pitch and see whether or not you think that he’s getting closer to a message that might have been more effective for the Democrats. And obviously, that we’re doing a, you know, pre autopsy here. But let’s play Curry Booker. This election

still is in the balance, and the reality is we’re bucking what our usual trends. And I think we’re bucking them because folks know at the end of the day, do they wanna go back to the sort of Donald Trump politics that divided our nation, undermined our democracy, and really preference their signature bill was a big giveaway to the largest corporations in the richest in America. And even though our economy is tough, people think about it and say, wait a minute, this is the party trying to protect unions. This is the party that made sure we did things to lower prescription drug costs and lower health care costs. That this is the party at the end of the day that’s trying to protect fundamental freedoms like the right to control your own body.

So I think that this is a tough election season. It’s a midterm election, but I still see a pathway for us to maintain control of the senate. Alright.

So is has that been the message that Democrats have effectively gotten out? Well,

I think the answer is yes, but, Charlie, I’ll be damned if I can tell you what what Corey Booker just said. I mean, he just went through a list of four or five different things. And it’s hard for mathematic. Totally not thematic. What can you tell me?

What how it ties together what he just said? No. I

see this is part of the problem is and and I and I think this has been one of the problems of being a legislative party is which you you you come up with a series of of different points that aren’t necessarily tied together by some broad theme like the one you described, you know, that that says, that we are I think he’s trying to say we are on your side. We are doing things for you. But I’m not sure that you’re simply citing a series of policies is is the way to do that in this particular environment. And by the way, this is I I don’t do this for I’m not a spinmeister. I’m not a consultant.

Right? I don’t have the Quicken Magic book. But remember last week, I I played a sound bite from Barack Obama’s speech where I thought he really did. Strike those notes. It was it was it it is interesting that both Bill Clinton and Obama managed to find a way to say, I am with you.

I share your aspirations. These other guys don’t in a way that listing a series of policies doesn’t do. Yeah. No, I think that’s a good point. Obama in the sound bite

we listened to before was really hitting the theme of hard work and being rewarded for your hard work. So it was a message to ordinary people that the rich shouldn’t be benefit, it shouldn’t be favored over you, but that’s not because you are a person in need. It’s a person because you work hard. You work harder than those rich people did. And so that should be rewarded.

That should be the government should should pay attention to you. I I would just point out though, Joe Biden himself, if you ever listened to Joe Biden talking freely, he he agrees with this. Joe Biden has a sense of the the work ethic and of the middle class as as people who work and should be treated with the proper respect for doing so. But for some reason that doesn’t come across because Democrats are trying to piece together all of these other issues. They’re trying to piece together divisiveness the economic message, abortion rights.

I mean, and these are all legitimate concerns, and some of these are winning issues, but it’s really hard to make them co gear.

No. It is. And of course, we’ll be so much smarter after we get the results of the election. I’m not gonna ask you to make predictions unless you wanted to. Well, I do

think it’s worth talking about what’s I mean, we’re talk here we are the the day before the election. Yeah. So if it’s okay with you, I will just say a little bit about this. Sure. Okay?

Okay. So I just didn’t wanna put you on the spot. I’m gonna be a

nice guy here. Yeah. No. No. I think

it’s just useful because people are gonna be watching the election returns tomorrow and sort of how to think about this. People have been talking about a wave. Is there gonna be a red wave, a red tsunami, or a red puddle, whatever that is? I think it is useful because I’m from hurricane land. I’ve come from the Gulf Coast of Texas.

By the way, congratulations, Houston Astros. I’m winning the world series. Set that aside. Hurricane Harvey came into the Houston area, and it was over the Houston area for days. And it just so it flooded the city.

It wasn’t that it blew things away. The water level just comes up. That is the way to think about this election. Don’t think about a way, think about a flood. The water level of Republican support of the backlash against Biden against the democrats has been coming up.

It’s been coming up for about a month at this point. And there are various Democrats in various different places. John Federman, Katie Hobbs, are in at different levels. There are different levels in the sort of in the floodplain. So the water level is gonna come up.

Some of these Democrats are gonna stay above water. They’re gonna eke out victories despite the bad national environment. Some of them are gonna get the water’s gonna come over their head and they’re gonna drown. And that is sort of the way to think about this election. And as you say, Charlie, it’ll be days in some cases before we know who drowned.

But the water level has been coming up It’s really high and there are a lot of Democrats who should have been high enough to survive any hurricane but this one and this flood is just that bad.

So who’s gonna survive? Who do you think is gonna keep their head above water? Almost all indications would suggest that the democratic candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, the city attorney general will survive. Do you agree with that? What do you think is gonna happen with Federman and us?

I mean, I’m looking more at the senate map than

the governors. I mean, you’ll you’re gonna laugh hard at me, Charlie. You’re in Wisconsin. I thought I’m not laughing. I thought Democrats were actually gonna win that race three months ago.

Yeah. And and and every poll Barnes was up. And as you you correctly predictively,

Yep.

The water came up. That is gone. Wisconsin is gone. Nevada is in serious trouble. Pennsylvania, at this point to me, which we all thought people at The Bulwark thought that Oz was dead.

That’s a coin toss at this point. Georgia incredibly it also a coin

toss incredibly.

Incredibly. Yeah. And can I I I gotta go off about Georgia for just a minute because this race drives me crazy. The

backlash

against Biden and the democrats is so not just bad, but reflective that the voters in Georgia who decided they’re gonna vote for the Republican nominee simply don’t care what is

has been exposed about Hershel Walker, about the abortions, about the abuse. A lying, the abuse, the abortion. I mean, almost if you were writing a novel about, like, the worst shit you could come up with. Yeah. You you’d probably, you know, stop a little bit short of that.

Right? And now let’s just stick to one of worship. Two of worshipers is, like, you know, too much. You know? But you’re right.

They don’t care. And, you know, I don’t know how you listen to Hershel Walker for five minutes

and don’t think this man should not be in elective office much less United States Senate, but that is not what millions of voters in Georgia are concluding. Yeah, it’s it’s

bad. And I think I mean, We all remember when Trump said he was running for president and he said I could walk out on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters. At this point, you know, we we’ve had two two abortions that Hershel Walker has been linked to. I mean, Hershel Walker could literally do an abortion on television. He could perform it himself.

I I think he would not lose a single vote. I I I it’s and this is this is what happens to democracies when they are in decay. Is people are so intent on voting for a party that they’re not at all looking at the character of the person they’re electing. And you end up with Trump’s, you end up with Walkers, and God knows who else is gonna get elected this year. And that also means though that that’s what

democracy has become. Now I’m gonna ask you a hard question. Alright. If democracy yields figures like Hershel Walker, who win a free and fair vote if that is what the demos wants. Is there

is our goal

really to defend democracy? I mean, you know what I’m saying? I mean, obviously, at some point, we keep saying democracy is on the ballot. Democracy is on the ballot. What if democracy just fucks us over?

Okay. So very very straightforward answer to your question. No. Yeah. Yes.

Democracy is worth defending. And what

it it’s important okay. I I can’t speak for other people. Many people out there think democracy is wonderful because we will elect what great leaders who will do well for us. That is clearly untrue. Right.

Right. That’s that’s been falsified by many democracies, including ours. The reason why we need democracy is not because it will get us the best government. It is because it allows us to take down the worst governments. Right?

Mhmm. Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others. Democracy gives you the right four years after you elected Donald Trump, one of the worst people in the United States of America. It gives you the right to vote him out. Donald Trump obviously tried to overturn democracy so that we couldn’t turn him out.

But we prevailed, we still have the democracy. If Herschel Walker gets elected, he will be a terrible, terrible senator for six years. And then the citizens of the residents of Georgia will have a chance to vote him out. It is better that they have that chance than that

they don’t. Okay. So I I’m I’m just playing with these ideas here, and I I agree with you. But, you know, part of our view is shaped by a series of of optimistic beliefs about the marketplace of ideas, the truth will always win out, that democracy rests upon the the intelligence and the wisdom and the virtue of the people. Those are all under significant challenge.

And at some point, we should have a much more in-depth discussion about free speech because I think I have, you know, up until the last few years been a pretty solid free speech absolutist believing, you know, that you counter bad ideas with good ideas. That you you counter hate speech with with other kinds of speech. On the other hand, that presumes a functioning marketplace not the kind of world that we’re living in right now. So, you know, whether we need to sort of, like, go back to the drawing board and, like, how do we cope with this? What is acceptable?

But I I I do think all of this challenges what we had thought of as pretty subtle norms in in liberal democracy. And I mean, I’m hoping you’re right. And I do think that you you go through it. I mean, look, the reality is is that we’ve elected some pretty horrible people over the years. The problem of course is that most of those horrible people fortunately did not have access to the nuclear button, did not have access to social media, but this will not be the first time that you’ve had really deplorable people chosen by the people.

But it’s going to be an awkward moment if in fact some of these folks win and win decisively in a free, fair election. And whether or not that support for democracy will continue among people who are disappointed at those results. Yeah.

But I I believe we firmly we we have to stand for democracy itself. We have we have to stand for the system. Look, if Carrie Lake gets elected governor of Arizona on Tuesday, which I think is likely to happen, then the important thing is not to say Cary Lake is an election denier, we have to find some way to invalidate this election. No, then you’re playing Cary Lake’s game. What we have to say is, what we are defending is the system.

Not the d, not the democrats, not, you know, we’re against election leaders. We are in favor of democracy. We are in favor of free she was elected in a free election, and we are going to respect that. And we will work to defeat her at the next Democratic opportunity, not the next undemocratic opportunity. So I firmly believe that we have to respect that.

And we we’re we’re just gonna have to you know, we can resist legally within the system bad people who get elected on Tuesday, but we have to defend the system. Well, speaking

of other systems here, I

wrote in my newsletter this morning morning shots that it feels like piling on to comment on Elon Musk’s terrible week, but but why not? I mean, we’re seeing the celebrity oligarch just both trash his investment, but also his reputation. I mean, I don’t know if you ever did this. I went back and read the time magazine person of the year covers story about him that would, you know, back in December — Uh-huh. — which is genuinely cringe worthy, especially as you watch him, kind of expose himself as this shallow petty pet excellent edge lord who’s not actually very good at things like managing human beings.

But there are real world consequences to what he’s doing. Now the late latest, and you tell me whether this is the latest. He’s delayed the imposition of the new non verified blue check mark thing until after the the midterm election. Is that right? He decided that that maybe having that, you know, having the hellscape go into full fledged inferno the week of the election maybe was a bad idea.

Is that right? So he’s delayed it now? I think that’s correct. I mean, the point

that we’re we’re twenty

four

hours away from it. So, you know, I I think at this point he’s delayed it, but in any event. It doesn’t take that much to just wait a few days to after the election to do this. Yeah. Because theoretically,

it’d be a less shitty idea then. Right? Problem, of course, is what we keep saying is the election is not necessarily going to be over on Tuesday. But, you know, we’re in a very challenged information environment now at at at perhaps the worst possible moment. And Chris Krebs, who you referenced earlier, you know, used to head up cybersecurity for the administration till he was fired by Donald Trump for not going along with his lies about the election, was on Face the Nation yesterday talking about this.

Let’s let’s play a little bit of Chris Krebs. It opens the information space to a broader community of influencers, cloud chasers, election denialists, and and actors? Absolutely. I mean, we’ve we’ve seen reports lately of Russia, China, and Iran back at their old tricks. And it is going to create a a very chaotic

environment. I think

that’s inevitable. Well, that it’s gonna be a very chaotic environment and that all of the people who are looking at ways to bring us down and to confuse us and so discord have got to be thinking this is a fantastic opportunity? Yeah, I I mean,

I think what’s happened here is that Musk has bought into and is surveying this idea, this anti institutionalism that is sweeping the country and sweeping much of the world. Right? It’s that we we don’t like the blue checks. We don’t like the system that allowed some people to be blue checks, the fake news media yada yada. So we’re gonna open things up to everybody.

And there’s this sort of spirit, this atmosphere of freedom and equality about it all. But, you know, when you tear down the institution, you have to ask yourself what you’re replacing it with. And if what you’re replacing it with is anybody can pay a bucks and get the check mark, then as Kreb says, you’re opening yourself up to all kinds of exploitation. And not just individual opportunists, but state opportunists. Right?

The Russians who, you know, can easily sort of through proxies, through laundered, you know, accounts. Find ways to get verification, to get to get the certification on accounts that they control, and that’s true that Chinese, that’s true of anyone you want to name. And at that point, who is the average Twitter user to to trust? How do you know

who to trust? Well, exactly.

I mean, you know, I have to admit, and I make a confession to you when I first heard that sound bite. And — Yeah. — he’s being asked about the foreign actors. I thought she said porn actors. And the reason okay.

In my in my defense is because I I I have been thinking about Elon Musk’s financial problems, which are severe, having taken on thirteen billion dollars in debt. So his debt service payments. I’m gonna get back to the point in a moment. His debt service payments are about about a billion dollars a year, which is more than than Twitter has ever made. I mean, the math just doesn’t add up no matter how you do it, unless you strip out all the costs and find new ways of generating revenue.

Now he’s shedding advertisers like crazy because they don’t wanna be, you know, surrounded by trolls and racists and bigots and crazy and all of Vista. The eight dollar an hour thing is not going to be a massive success just saying, I don’t think it’s going to work, which means that, you know, he’s either going to have to reduce the expenditures to close to zero or come up with a vast new source of revenue, which brings me to the porn actors. Is it it? And at some point, he’s sitting around going, guys, you gotta come up with some idea for making money here. How can I make some money off Twitter and somebody’s gonna raise their hand and say, you know, the only thing that we can think of to monetize is pornography.

For you. Right? Right? Yeah. But that’s hilarious.

I I I didn’t hear it that way, but, you know, God bless you. Honestly, Charlie, if porn

takes over Twitter, that’s less bad than some of the alternatives I can think of. I’m sorry. This will offend some people, but

I completely agree with you and all that. Of all of the really, really, really bad toxic outcomes. That is the least bad. Okay. Fine.

Right. And I if you are if you’re working for the Internet research

agency that is the Russian, you know, operation that goes out and tries to the bots and whatnot. I I encourage you to spend your money on porn and, you know, go ahead, pornify our Twitter. What I’m obviously, what I’m much more afraid of is people just spreading lies disguised as news, actual fake news on Twitter. And that if you think it’s been bad now, if you think what you right wingers call fake news, is fake way too you see the crazy stuff. I mean, you all look at the freaking Paul Pelosi

episode. Yeah. That felt like an horserf. For what’s what we’re about to be served. It’s like, you can’t even come up with stuff, more bizarre.

Look, when we had the president of the United States actually sitting around the Oval Office, talking about Italian spy satellites dealing the election. We were pretty far down the road, and and I’m sure people can can go back, you know, before that, well, what about, you know, the JFK, you know, conspiracy theories. What about, you know, the nine eleven truthors? You know, this stuff’s been around, but now it just feels like it’s bursting all the bounds and yeah. And and, of course, we haven’t even fully experience the impact of deep fakes.

I mean, the the I thought this might be the cycle, the next cycle may be, and who knows what comes after deep fakes? It it is going to be it it is going to be a health care. By the way, I have to admit that I thought it was somewhat inspired trolling when he said, yeah, we’re gonna eliminate actual verification. Anybody that wants to can have a blue check just for giving me eight bucks and somehow trying to make that as a man of the people populous thing. And the number of people who basically were saying, okay, Elon, this is what you want, this is what it’s going to look like, and then they changed their names to Elon Musk and began tweeting over his name, which clearly pissed him off because now he’s saying anybody that does that.

No warning. You’re gonna be banned forever from from Twitter even to think about it. But it was interesting to make the point to him, Elon. Imagine what it’s like if there are a hundred thousand people who are pretending to be you unverified. Pointmade, whatever the result is.

You know,

I exactly. I I love that. And this isn’t something I just wanna say to people who think they’re pessimists. If you believe you are a pessimist and your version of pessimism is Twitter is a cesspool or democracy is a cesspool, it can’t possibly get any worse. You are not a pessimist.

You are an optimist. A pessimist is a person who looks at the world as bad as it is and says, oh, this can get much, much worse. And we’re about to find out, in the case of Twitter, how much worse it can get when you change from a system that a lot of people agree had serious flaws. To one that is likely to be much more flawed and much more dangerous. So final question, on that Bright and Cherry note,

What do

you make of the people going over to Mastodon? I actually have it on my to do list to at least, like, try to figure out how it works. I mean, apparently, it’s a little more challenging and it would take me probably fifteen minutes to explain it to somebody. But, you know, like, where’s our life? What’s the lifeboat?

This weekend,

I went over to Mastodon to try to figure out, you know, I thought, you know, it’s good to why don’t we go plant the bulwark flag over there, set something up? You have to sign up on this particular server. Yeah. Charlie, I could not find a server, a group on Mastodon that would fit a heterosexual, non furry, somebody who’s interested in political news. It’s sort of a niche community, an esoteric community place, a network of such communities.

But they they can all talk to each other. Right? So

we could, like, create a little bulwark, like, you know, Hamlet, Yeah. I guess they can talk to each other. It’s and by the way, I just wanna be clear

before I get that you get in trouble for what I just said. I’m not equating on the sexuality with with with furries, not that there’s anything wrong with being a furry, but I’m just saying, there isn’t a mass community, a general audience kind of place on Mastodon as far as I can tell. And people ought to know there’s a different nomenclature

over there. You don’t tweet at Mastodon. You toot Yeah. Yeah. You send out toots.

Seems a little derivative to me. But I, you know, the the thing about it is that So you form these organic communities that can talk to one another. You’re not necessarily siloed. You can bring over your whole mutes and block thing from from Twitter. No.

Okay. I agree with you. I never like to be one of the first adopters in order to jump into the pit. But if enough people do, it creates a critical mass where it might be at least marginally viable. And by the way, because we all have to be thinking about how we’re gonna respond to the Trump apocalypse.

You saw that we actually, at the bulwark, are offering an alternative to the Trump apocalypse, is that for the month of, I could be kinda like this, we’re offering a better deal than Elon. Elan wants you to pay eight bucks for a meaningless check mark that gets you pretty much nothing. We are offering for the month of November. Here comes the pitch. Eight bucks for full membership in Bulwark plus for a year, for eight bucks a month.

So we’re basically saying, Elon’s RFID says for eight bucks a month, you get a blue check mark we’re saying for eight bucks a month, you get to be a member of the Bulwark plus community. And we’re gonna give you that deal for a full year, eight bucks a month. So just just just thinking about this would be a time to do this. I think it’s a pretty sweet offer. Obviously inspired

by Elon. Right. And this is something that I hope everyone in our audience will will think about. It’s like the the bookwork It is a community of people who are, yes, we have limits. We’re dead people who believe in democracy.

Okay? If you don’t believe in democracy, you’re probably not gonna be happy to the board. We believe in evidence. If you don’t believe in evidence, you’re not gonna be happier. We believe in good faith argument.

If you don’t, if you like to lie, you’re probably not gonna be happier. But if you believe in those things, If you believe in democracy, if you believe in evidence, if you believe in good faith discussion, the bork is a terrific forum, a great place to be, and you meet lots of other people who share those values. And then you also get the snark. So I I I

I have to admit. I I if you if you if you sign up, you get like things like my my morning that are morning shots where you get to see the the transformation my take on the transformation complete with pictures of Elon Musk from being I am Iron Man to I am Zoolander, including a picture of the most iconic scene from that movie that I believe describes both our political and our cultural moment, which you can see if you are a bulwark plus member and so describe two morning shots. Did you ever wanna see that movie, or is that is that one of these top culture references that — Yeah. — I don’t know it, but like thousands of

other people I am now going to morning shots. Catch up on it. Can I just redo some of the things? Because I k. This should this should be in one of

our behind the paywall things because for some reason, I still subscribed to Time Magazine, maybe just out of sort of, you know, nostalgia and memory. It has become sort of a it’s got some good stuff in it. But it’s also obsessed with star fucking. It is so besotted with celebrities. So last year, This is a direct quote, Time Magazine, named him person of the year, described that he, Elon Musk, quote, dreams of Mars as he be strides Earth, square jaw, and indomitable — Uh-huh.

— okay? Uh-huh. Even his absurdity. Make him larger than life. And this is a magazine that used to be run by Henry Loose.

This is the man who aspires to save our planet. And get us a new one to inhabit, cloud, genius, edge ward visionaries, industrialist showman CAD, a mad cap hybrid of Thomas Edison, PT Barnum, Andrew Carnegie, and WATCHMAN’s Doctor Manhattan — Oh, my goodness. — Blue Skin Man God who invests electric cars and moves to Mars. Man, god. Oh, go.

Okay. So and now people are going you want this just nasty thin skinned pots, you know? Who tweets out these flop sweat tweets? That show how needy and insecure you are. And he’s done this to himself in one week.

It’s amazing. So

alright. So we can agree that, like, I I think Charlie, I think we’ve come to unifying ethos here, which is against God Kings, against all the fake God Kings and the veneration. Of these deeply flawed people, including Elon Musk. And as you’re saying, it’s beautiful that what Elon bought here was not, you know, Tesla, not SpaceX. It was it it’s a platform, a a communication platform on which the thing that he has communicated is to put it politely his foul ability.

Obviously, not a god king, a twelve year old, like Donald Trump, like Rhonda Santos, and like many others, who pretend to be God Kings. So, Matt Is it is it Matt

Labash? Labash? I’m I’m sorry because I was actually corresponding with him, so I wanna get it right. But wrote about him. Everyone’s favorite publicity tapeworm of a billionaire.

The man who puts the ass in Asperger’s So I’ve gone a long way from the brooding blue skinned men god to the guy that puts ass in ass burgers. Okay. We will talk. Next week, we will be so much older and wiser with them. Yes, we will, Charlie, and I

hope that you and I will not be underwater. And

I’m just gonna write out the note that our news slogan should be Bullwork, The Home of the Resistance, to All God Kings. The Bullwork Podcast is produced by Kitty Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back tomorrow.

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